(Vol. ii., pp. 89. 475.)
No less than nine long months have elapsed since you adopted my
suggestion of limiting your columns, on the disputed question relative
to the collar of SS., to a record of the names of those persons who,
either on the monumental effigies or brasses, or in their portraits or
otherwise, are represented as wearing that ornament; together with a
short statement of the position held by each of these individuals in the
court of the then reigning monarch, seeming to warrant the assumption.
How is it that the invitation has not produced more than a single
response? Is it that the combatants are more fond of discussing the
probabilities of a disputed point, than of seeking for facts to aid in
its illustration? I hope that this is not so, in an age that prides
itself in its antiquarian and historical investigations; and I trust
that, now the dismissal of the parliament has relieved many from onerous
duties, your pages may benefit, not only on this but on other important
subjects, by the vacational leisure of your learned contributors.
That I may not myself be chargeable with a continuance of the silence of
which I complain, I now offer to you no less than eleven of the earliest
names, principally taken from Boutell's _Monumental Brasses_, but some
suggested in your own pages, on whose monuments or otherwise the collar
occurs. To most of these I have added a few particulars seeming to
warrant the assumption; and I doubt not that some of your correspondents
will supply you with similar hints as to those of whom I have as yet
been unable to trace anything applicable to the subject of enquiry.
1. The first of these is in 1382, seventeen years before the accession
of Henry IV. It appears on the brass of Sir Thomas Burton, in Little
Castreton Church, in Rutlandshire. This knight, we find, received
letters of protection on accompanying the Duke of Lancaster to France in
1369, when Edward III. revived his claim to that kingdom.[1] Being thus
one of the retainers of the duke, the assumption of his collar of livery
may be at once accounted for.
[Footnote 1: N. Foedera, iii. 870.]
2. The next that we have is on the monument of John Gower in the church
of St. Saviour, Southwark. The poet died in 1402, 4 Henry IV. It is more
than doubtful whether he was a knight, and the only ground that I can
suggest for his being represented with the collar of SS. is, that he was
in some manner, perhaps as the court poet, attached to the household of
the king. Of his transferred devotion to Henry IV. we have sufficient
evidence in the revision of his _Confessio Amantis_, from which he
excluded all that he had previously said in praise of his patron Richard
II.
3. Sir Thomas Massingberd died in 1406, and on his monument in Gunby
Church in Lincolnshire, both he and his lady are represented with
collars of SS. Why, I have still to seek.
4. In 1407 there is a similar instance of a knight and his lady being so
ornamented. These are Sir William and Lady Bagot, whose monument is in
Baginton Chruch, Warwickshire. Boutell says that he was the first who
received this decoration from the king. Be this as it may, the Patent
Rolls contain sufficient to account for his and his wife's assuming King
Henry's livery from gratitude for the restoration of his land, which he
had forfeited as an adherent to Richard II.[2]
[Footnote 2: Cal. Rot. Pat. 236. 243.]
5. Then follows Sir John Drayton, whose monument, dated in 1411, is in
Dorchester Church, Oxfordshire. It may be presumed that he was in the
king's household; as in the beginning of the reign of Richard II. he was
keeper of the royal swans; and early in that of Henry IV., was serjeant
of the king's pavilions and tents. Thomas Drayton, who was made Assayer
of the Mint in the year of Sir John's death[3], was probably his son.
[Footnote 3: Cal. Rot. Pat. 196. 259.; Devon's Issue Roll, 286.]
6. In the following year, 1412, we have the collar of SS. represented on
the brass of Sir Thomas Swynborne in Little Horkeley Church, Essex. Two
or three years before, and perhaps at the time of his death, the knight
held the offices of Mayor of Bordeaux, and of the king's lieutenant in
those parts.
The last five of these are in the reign of Henry IV. In the reign of
Henry V., I am not aware of any examples; but in that of Henry VI., we
find five other instances.
7. In Trotton Church, Sussex, is the monument of Thomas Lord Camoys, who
died in 1424, and of his wife; both of whom are distinguished by the
collar. He was a Knight of the Garter, and commanded the left wing of
the English army at the battle of Agincourt.
8. A monument, supposed to be that of Sir John Segrave, dated in 1425,
occurs in Dorchester Church, Oxfordshire: of whom I can state nothing.
9. On the brass of John Leventhorpe, Esq., in the church of
Sawbridgeworth, in Hertfordshire, the collar is also to be found. He
died in 1433, and was one of the executors named in the will of King
Henry IV.[4]
[Footnote 4: Devon's Issue Roll, 334.]
10. The monument in Yatton Church, Somersetshire, representing a judge
in his robes, is traditionally ascribed to Sir Richard Newton, who died
Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in 1449. This is, I believe, the first
example of a judge being represented with the collar of SS.
11. The silver collars of the king's livery bequeathed by the will of
John Baret of Bury, may be presumed, although he did not die till after
the accession of Edward IV., to be of the livery of Henry VI.; as he is
not only represented on his tomb, which he had erected during Henry's
reign, with the collar of SS.; but the chantry, also built by him, is
profusely ornamented with the same collar, enclosing his monogram J. B.
He probably received the privilege of wearing it during Henry's visit to
St. Edmondsbury in 1433.[5]
[Footnote 5: Bury Wills, Camden Soc. 15-14. 233.]
I shall be glad to see a continuation of this list carried on through
subsequent reigns, since it is only by the multiplication of examples
that we shall be enabled to form a more correct conclusion on the
various questions connected with this interesting subject.
Will one of your correspondents kindly inform me where it appears that
Richard II. ever wore the collar of SS.?